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Charles' Harrison's Live
Food Cultures
Charles keeps quite a few live food cultures, but I include here
his white worms, because he keeps them going and I don't, and his brine
shrimp hatchery, which seems to be a very efficient setup.
Charles' White Worms
Charles keeps these in a standard stryofoam fish box in his
basement, which stays fairly cool most of the year, but if it gets too
warm in the summertime, he has a small fridge he sets to about 55
degrees to keep them happy. They live on Magic Worm Bedding, and
he feeds the cultures a slices of bread soaked in water with a bit of
active dry yeast. This thriving culture will demolish this slice
of bread completely in a few days.
To feed his fish, he just takes a swipe with his finger to rub off a
few worms, and doesn't worry about the bit of bedding that comes along
with it. He just vacuums up the dirt with the other debris when
he does his frequent water changes.
Charles' Brine Shrimp Hatchery
I like the way this setup incorporates light and
heating together and makes efficient harvesting very simple.
Charles cut the bottom off a couple of gallon jugs with a glass cutter,
sealed the lids on with aquarium silicone sealant, then inverted the
jugs in a board with holes cut for the necks of the jars. Airline
tubing runs in into the jars to keep the water moving
briskly. In front of and below the jars he placed a small
flourescent light fixture, so that the lamp provides some heat and
light 24/7 to the cultures. Here's the view of one of the jars
with the light removed so you can see how the jars are sit into their
holder, and the airline tubing goes right down to the bottom of the jar:
And here are the two jars side by side with the light in place:
To harvest the nauplii, he just pulls the airstones out of the jars,
waits a couple of minutes for the nauplii to be drawn to the light and
siphons them from the necks of the jars with a baster. Then they
get rinsed and fed to the fish.
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